The U.S. government could be shutting down its 22nd shutdown of the last half-century. If such a scenario occurs, it would disrupt orimpede a wide range of government functions, including immigration enforcement, national parks, and food subsidies for low-income families.
The reason for the dispute is a dispute in the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. The vast majority of hard-right lawmakers are demanding substantial cuts in spending, while the majority is voting in favor of any budget bill.
The bipartisan majority of lawmakers probably wants to keep the government running. But making any deal with Democrats could cause McCarthy's most right-wing members to defyestrate him. When many programs run out of money, the clock is down to the moment when many programs will run out of money.
here's why this is happening and what the U.S. can expect in the coming days.
Congress and the President must annually approve budget bills to fund a wide range of government programs. If they don't, the government legally can't pay many of its employees, or run many of its services, and these shut down.
Since the 1970s, some lawmakers and presidents have frequently triggered shutdowns, or threatened to, in order to force the other to concede on their budget demands.
In parliamentary systems, when lawmakers vote down a budget bill, the government falls and, typically, the nation faces a snap election.
Hundreds of thousands of federal government employees are furloughed, while many more construction workers are employed. The services they offer are temporarily closed. In recent shutdowns, these have included national parks and programs that give loans to small businesses and farmers.
The longer the shutdown lasts, the more significant the effects will be. Low-income people may still have enough money in their coffers to keep operating after the end of the program, but the funds may eventually dwindle. Some federal workers deemed essential, such as soldiers and border guards, will still be on the job, but won't be paid. In the last shutdown, absenceeeism rates among these workers rose in 2018 and 2019, leading to slowdowns at border crossings and airports. The E-Verify system, which allows employers to inspect if potential employees are undocumented migrants, also went offline.
The nation's largest social security net funds, Medicare and Social Security, are funded indefinitely, so they won't stop operating in the event of a shutdown. However, it may have some problems because of a lack of staff. For example, people applying for more pension benefits could see their cases delayed.
With a majority of just five seats in the House of Representatives, Mr. McCarthy needs just about his entire caucus to pass anything. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of the group of Republican hardliners, is demanding large spending cuts to support any budget bills. One, which includes Marjorie Taylor Greene, opposes further military aid to Ukraine.
If McCarthy does not agree with any or all these demands, the resulting legislation will almost certainly die in the Democrat-led Senate or be vetoed by President Joe Biden. In the spring, McCarthy and Biden agreed on funding levels for several government agencies as part of a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling. He wants to see far lower funding levels, which is insufficient for Mr. Gaetz.
If McCarthy teams up with Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass budget legislation that complies with the debt ceiling agreement, Mr. Gaetz or others would almost certainly try to overthrow him as speaker.
The former president, Donald Trump, who is far more popular than any Republican congressional leader, is discouraging them from making any deals.
About the only thing that the entire Republican caucus can agree on is improving security at the U.S.-Mexico border despite a surge in migrants. Another, more remote possibility is for House Democrats and some Republicans to use a discharge petition to force a vote on their own budget legislation, potentially a bipartisan stop-gap funding measure already approved by the Senate.
The duration of previous shutdowns has varied from a 34-day marathon during Trump's presidency to brief one- or two-day stops during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
The scandal has made some Republicans wary: The perception that they suffered more in popular opinion than the Democrats did during previous shutdowns has made them wary. This was probably true of 1996, when former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich asked for heftier program cuts from then-president Bill Clinton. During the 2016 election, Clinton was easily re-elected.
In Donald Trump's case, the resolution to the impasse, which turned on funding for his wall on the Mexican border, involved reappropriating military funds without the help of Congress, something he could have done without the drama of a shutdown.
They create unnecessary hardships for millions of Americans, said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
The remark remains to be seen whether this view will ever win over the handful of holdingouts in the House.